A True Life Story Of A New Leader And A Hero

This a True Life Story
about how we had a new hero and leader born due to a small incident
which required a lot of guts to achieve. This true life story happened sometime back in the year
1986, when we were in the Academy at Goa, India and were just about
to go to Kochi for another training course.

We were never
allowed to go out of the academy gates because we had not passed the
drill test and swimming test. The academy was situated on top of a
hill in Goa. We never knew what Goa looked like because we were
living inside the high walls with barbed wires on top of the walls of the academy which gave us no view of
what lay beyond those walls.

The only glimpse of the outside world
we got was during the Sunday marathon run, which we had no choice to
skip, along the eight and a half kilometer unpaved hillside road
snaking around the academy. The local people in Goa are mostly Christians.
So there are so many churches in Goa that you will see at least two
churches every kilometer.

And the people going to church was the only humans in civil clothes
we used to see from the time we joined the academy. We were all
desperate to go out into the towns of Goa. Even a gruelling Marathon
was OK with us because we get the freedom for an hour to run around
outside the academy gates and walls. Finally the marathon brings us
back to the academy because there are sailors in white uniform
posted every hundred yards to ensure that none of us date to escape
into the town and ensure that each and everyone reach back to the
academy. The Marathon on Sunday was going to develop into a true
story.

We did not know how many true stories had happened inside the
academy walls. But this true story on a Sunday when we were not
going to run the Marathon but were going to the town outside right
in front of the rest of the academy cadets who started running the
Marathon was what made this true life story so exciting. A new
leader and a new hero emerged at the end of this true story on a
single day.